1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sponsored search and online advertising.
2. Background
A search engine is an information retrieval system used to locate documents and other information stored on a computer system. Search engines are useful at reducing an amount of time required to find information. One well known type of search engine is a Web search engine which searches for documents, such as web pages, on the “World Wide Web” (also known as “the Web”). Examples of such search engines include Yahoo! Search™ (at http://www.yahoo.com), Microsoft Bing™ (at http://www.bing.com), Ask.com™ (at http://www.ask.com), and Google™ (at http://www.google.com). Online services such as LexisNexis™ and Westlaw™ also enable users to search for documents provided by their respective services, including articles and court opinions. Further types of search engines include personal search engines, mobile search engines, and enterprise search engines that search on intranets, among others.
To perform a search, a user of a search engine typically enters a query into an entry box of the search engine. The query contains one or more words/terms, such as “hazardous waste” or “country music.” The terms of the query are typically selected by the user to as an attempt find particular information of interest to the user. The search engine returns a list of documents relevant to the query. In a Web-based search, the search engine typically returns a list of uniform resource locator (URL) addresses for the relevant documents, which is displayed to the user in a search results page. If the scope of the search resulting from a query is large, the returned list of documents may include thousands or even millions of documents.
“Sponsored search” refers to a form of Internet advertising/marketing that enables advertisers to increase their visibility in the results page of a search engine query. According to sponsored search, an advertiser may pay or provide other compensation for having an advertisement appear in a sponsored section of the results page for one or more particular queries. A user who enters one of the queries into the search engine is provided with a results page that includes the advertisement in the sponsored search section. The sponsored search section is prominently displayed in the results page, to enable the user to easily see and interact with the advertisement. In this manner, an advertiser is enabled to provide advertisements to users that are directly related to their queries, and a search engine owner/operator is enabled to further monetize the search engine.
Successful sponsored search advertising often depends on successful determination of the topic a user is inquiring about, which may in turn depend on successful determination of a location a user is inquiring about. The terms location, geo and geo-location are used interchangeably herein to refer to any conceivable location.
Location is typically derived from geo features drawn from three sources. The first source is an expression of geo-intent in a user query. For example, if a user enters queries such as “Lake Tahoe Ski Resorts” or “Lake Tahoe Weather,” then the geo feature in each query is explicit, i.e., “Lake Tahoe.” However, users do not always make clear the location pertaining to their inquiry. Thus, location may need to be inferred from alternate sources.
The second source is a user's internet protocol (IP) address. For example, if a user does not enter an explicit geo feature, one may be inferred from a user's IP address by mapping the IP address to a location of the computer providing the user query. The third source is a user's registration information. For example, if a user does not enter an explicit geo feature and if a user is registered with an Internet based service or application (e.g., has an account with Yahoo!, Google, etc.), a geo feature may be inferred from the user's registration information such as the user's address.
The clarity of geo intent evident in search queries provided by a user may vary from one query to the next. Likewise, as a user's queries vary, results vary. Application of rules that select and use geo features to derive geo intent of each query may result in search results for successive queries being based on different geo locations that do not accurately reflect geo intent. This may negatively impact user experience as well as advertiser success in reaching potential consumers. Inaccurate understanding of geo intent may under or over utilize a sponsor's geo target ad inventory.
For example, in a first query a user may enter “Lake Tahoe Weather” and in a follow-up query may enter “Ski Resorts.” If a user does not live in Lake Tahoe, is not a registered user and/or is not using a computer traceable to Lake Tahoe, sponsored search results returned for the “Ski Resorts” query may be undesirable for the user and sponsors because it is not known that Lake Tahoe was the geo intent of the search.
As another example of a failure to properly interpret a user's geo intent, a user may enter “eiffel tower hotel” in a first query, “paris attractions” in a second query, “things to do in paris” in a third query and “paris casinos” in a fourth query. While the geo intent is properly determined to be “Paris, France” in the first three queries, geo intent may be improperly determined to be “Las Vegas” in the fourth query due to the presence of and website for the Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Hence, to improve the accuracy of sponsored search results to the benefit of users and advertisers, it is important to improve geo precision of sponsored geo-targeted advertisements.